Cyclists ride on the designated Bloor Street bike lanes in Toronto on Oct. 12, 2017. (THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Jess Spieker, of Friends and Families for Safe Streets, informed the members of public works committee Tuesday that “road safety” is their job and continuing to allow people to cross a six-lane highway (her depiction Yonge St., north of Hwy 401) is “dangerous and unsafe.”

The personal trainer — who according to her own bio serves clients mostly in the downtown core — warned councillors, in a voice dripping with self-righteousness, that turning down bike lanes on Yonge St. — all to “save 1,600 York Region drivers” — is “perverse.”

That theme — that 905ers have no right to use Yonge St. to commute from York Region into the city — was reiterated a number of times by the sanctimonious and assorted friends of John Filion, the well-past-his-best-before date councillor behind the $51-million REimagining Yonge St. scheme.

Councillor John Filion (Toronto Sun files)

Besides prettying up Yonge St., the plan calls for taking out two lanes of traffic in one of the most congested corridors of Toronto (Sheppard up to Finch Aves.) for dedicated cycle tracks.

Two members of the Filion fan club — Bill Keenan and Kaye Rickatson — snorted derisively at commuters who dare to use Yonge St. and at Councillor Stephen Holyday for making it clear he didn’t support putting cycling tracks on Yonge St.

“Our neighbourhood shouldn’t be held hostage by commuters from the 401 … or by businesses who think the sky would fall,” sniffed Keenan.

Rickatson told Holyday she had a “nice car” but didn’t intend to drive it.

Even Filion, the councillor who was also behind the city’s failed A la Carte plan, served up this priceless little insult: “We have to do something to discourage the 905ers from going through the centre of the city.”

But after two hours of this kind of out-of-touch, self-serving nonsense from the cycling lobby, a bare quorum of councillors — led by Holyday and David Shiner — opted 3-1 to approve the alternate plan which proposes sprucing up Yonge St. but without removing any lanes of traffic. The bike lanes would be installed on neighbouring Beecroft Rd. at an extra cost of $9 million (instead of the $22-million originally proposed.)

Holyday said he’s very concerned about introducing more congestion along the proposed section of Yonge St.

Councillor Stephen Holyday (VERONICA HENRI, Toronto Sun)

“Everyone seems to dump on the 905ers and people in the north end of the city,” he said. “Maybe they’re coming into the city to shop or access their job … It’s extremely important to their quality of life to be able to move around.”

He’s 100% right. But one should never underestimate the ability of the cyclepaths and the ideologically driven damn-the-torpedoes councillors at City Hall — Joe Cressy being at the top of the list — to intimidate council into making dumb decisions.

This still must go to council at the end of next month and that gives the tag team of Cressy and Filion time to encourage councillors to ruin Yonge St.

Cressy — seemingly miffed that he and his cyclepaths lost the vote Tuesday when they’ve been so successful at ramming bike lanes down everyone’s throats up to now — tried to suggest that those who oppose the bike lanes on Yonge St. are still locked in the 1950s instead of wanting to invest in a 21st-century city.

And then he outdid himself with vintage Cressy spin. He suggested that the bike lane vision will create a “vibrant Main St. for business and economic development” where people want to come — just like what he has in the downtown neighbourhoods where he resides.

I wanted to stand up and shout: “Just like King St. where you’ve created a Ghost Town, Mr. Cressy? Or how about Bloor St. where small entrepreneurs are hanging on by their fingernails and are afraid to say how poorly they’re doing for fear of being intimidated by the bike lobby?”

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